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An anonymous reader writes "Mike Bolesta of Baltimore thought he would protest Best Buy's not-so-great customer service and pay his bill with 57 $2 bills. For his trouble he got to spend some time in the county lock-up." From the article: "..Bolesta was contacted by the store, and was threated with police action if he did not pay the [installation] fee he was told before did not exist. As a sign of protest, Bolesta decided to pay using only $2 bills, which he has an abundance of because he asks his bank for them specifically. Unfortunately for him, the cashier did not seem to understand that the $2 bill is indeed legal US tender, since the bill itself is not often used. After rudely refusing to take the money, the cashier accepted the bills, only to mark them as though they were conterfeit."

You know, that a Best Buy would have such an ignorant cashier (who now claims the bills were "smudged" and so "appeared to be counterfeit") does not surprise me in the least. It happens. Lots of people are stupid.

What scares me (and surprises me a little, though less than it probably should) is that this guy made it all the way to the county lock-up on the suspicions of one cashier (who in all likelihood is little more than an overimaginative freshman from the local community college). Holding the "perp" in temporary custody right there at the store while someone examined the bills would probably have been going too far, but at least it would have been a semi-routine excersize in caution rather than time in a cell.

IANAL and I don't know what makes for a good wrongful arrest suit, but I hope this guy gets something for his trouble. This kind of paranoia is disturbing enough among the unwashed, paranoid, intellectually barren cannon fodder of America; I would expect the full-fledged adults working in law enforcement to have significantly cooler heads.

I'm not surprised either. Turnover rate is high and many of them are students working part-time. Once I had a cashier insisting that I present a photo ID along with my photo credit card. I politely pointed out that the whole point of having a photo on my credit card is so that I won't have to show my driver licence, which in my case is the same exact picture. "Store policy," she said, at which point I understood that she's a new trainee and must have felt it's better to be safe than sorry. So I showed my ID and everybody's happy. I guess my point is: try not to confuse the poor cashier.

I knew a guy who had the habit of tossing dimes into the open cash draw at places like Mc Donald's. Apparently at the time McD's had a policy where they were much more worried if you had extra cash since it means you ripped off a customer where if you came up short you may be stealing from the company. The result is if your over by $.10 you end up counting and recounting and the manager gets to recount and someone has to fill out forms incase the irate costumer shows up looking for their $.10. He claimed that if you could get a dime in three draws it would waste an hour of a managers time.

Apparently at the time McD's had a policy where they were much more worried if you had extra cash since it means you ripped off a customer

I worked in the cash office at the
local grocery store [heb.com] for several years. (Overall, I wasted six years at that place. Leaving was one of the best things I ever did.)

There, we generally treated overages and underages the same -- if you're over $5, you got punished just like you would if you were under $5. (Though for an isolated incident, $5 was no big deal.)

Amounts under $1 were considered OK and not worth any sort of write-up or anything. But even $100 wouldn't mean a lot of extra manager work -- just that we'd double check our counting of the till and that would be that. (The checker, on the other hand, would get in trouble for that much. Not fired, but trouble. They'd have to count their own till (the thing that holds the money) for a while and if their money control didn't improve, they'd get fired eventually.

I tend to believe that we were more picky about who we hired than the local McDonalds -- certainly, we'd interview people and not hire them, and they'd appear at McDonalds. And we generally hired kids as baggers rather than cashiers, so we got a chance to know them before promoting them. So I'm guessing that McDonalds probably did NOT freak out about a till being $0.10 off, even if it happened every day -- otherwise, they'd be freaking out all the time.

Last I heard, 8% of the US population had worked at McDonalds at some point in their life:)

As for $2 bills, they showed up in the cash office on a regular basis, and I'd snag them (replacing them with 2 $1 bills, of course!) I used them for tips and the like, since they were a bit unusual. Hopefully no waitress thought I was giving her fake money:)

I worked in a small-town movie rental store where we had the owner, one manager, and the slave labor. The slave labor that counted out money was based solely on seniority.

The policy was $5 over or under and we had to call the manager at home (at 11pm) to come re-count. Neither employee could leave until this was done, and the manager was not known for being speedy.

Most of the time, for significant overages or underages, the counter would just pocket the money or pay out of pocket to avoid calling the manager. There were lots and lots of $4.90-$4.99 miscounts, which led to the manager making a sting. He intentionally put far too much money in the till at the beginning of the day just to catch the counter in the act. From then on, there were spot-stings, so even if we counted out at $5.01 over or under, we called him.

I once got a $50 bill back in change when I should have gotten a $20. Not wanting to screw over some poor cashier I tried to Do The Right Thing (tm) and return the money.
"You've made a small mistake," I said - I swear, that's verbatim what I said, and the verbatim reply I got was "NO. I don't make mistakes."
Being, in some situations, a slow learner, I repeated my assertion; "No, really, there's been a little mistake made." (Note the regression into passive speech - I was really, really trying to avoid assigning blame here.)
Nope. About six degrees Kelvin comes the reply, "I told you, I don't make mistakes."
"Fine," I replied, walking away, "at the end of the day, when you're adding up, remember that the mistake you didn't make was a $30 mistake."

there is a scam that starts with the phrase, "You've made a small mistake, you gave me too much money".

I was a waiter once. The scam starts out as stated, then the scam escalates by the scammer giving back some money and then saying "I've made a small mistake," . After a few of these 'mistakes' a cashier may be caught off guard, especially if the scammer is very friendly. The victim loses count and then the victim has lost some money.

I can see why someone may have said what they said, especially if you asserted yourself as being friendly.

Sorry, but I was also a waiter once, and a bartender more than once, and a cashier way more than once, and I have no sympathy.
The fact that a scam can start with those words is a reason to be wary. It is not a reason to shut a person down before they have a chance to explain what the mistake was.
Many a scam starts out with "Hello" too. Assuming that every conversation which starts with "Hello" is a scam is not only stupid, it's bad business.
Assuming that your customers are con artists causes you to end conversations which would otherwise have benefitted you - as was the case with my conversation with the Woolworth's cashier.
I didn't make the assumption that the cashier I encountered was a typical employee, but if she treated others the way she treated me I'd imagine that Woolworth's lost a hell of a lot of business... probably far more than they saved by shutting off conversations with conmen who then went on to find other avenues for exploitation.

I believe this type of scammer is called a "quick change artist." My mum has a great story about how she got taken for a couple of quid while working retail in London, only to take 10 pounds off the next guy that tried it by talking faster than him.

'Try not to confuse the poor cashier' is a nice sentiment, and it's all well and good if you're a patient person. But some people are just stubborn, and if they know they're in the right then they won't alter their habits. People should not ever get chucked in a cell just because they're stubborn.

You know, that a Best Buy would have such an ignorant cashier (who now claims the bills were "smudged" and so "appeared to be counterfeit") does not surprise me in the least. It happens. Lots of people are stupid.

You should try paying in Susan B. Anthony dollars someplace. Even though coins are struck with "One dollar" right on the face, some people insist that they are quarters. Very annoying.

Even though coins are struck with "One dollar" right on the face, some people insist that they are quarters.

That's because they're shaped almost exactly like quarters. Which is because vending machine industry lobbied the gov't to make them "compatible" with existing vending hardware. Partly because of this, nobody used the damned things and the vending machine industry ended up having to put elaborate and expensive bill readers on many machines.

When I heard they were going to create a new dollar coin a couple of years ago, I thought: Great, now that they've learned their lesson, they won't put out a coin that is so easily mistaken for another denomination. I was wrong; now the vending machine industry wanted them to make the new coin exactly the same size and weight as the Susan B. to maintain "compatibility"! How stupid can they get? Now nobody uses the new one either.

IMO, if they would just come out with a nice thick and chunky coin like the British 1 pound coin, one that has a nice feel when you plop it down on a bar and *looks* like it's worth more than other coins, then there would be no problem getting the public to use it. I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to actually happen, though.

After my recent trip to the US (I live in the UK), I was baffled to why on earth the lowest base denomination was a note (bill) instead of a coin, meaning that vending machines are forced to accept bills *and* coins, unlike in the UK where everything up to £2 (1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 50 pence, then £1 and £2) are all in coins.

Coins cost twice as much to mint (4 cents vs 8 cents for a dollar coin), sure, but that's only a minor part of the equation. Coins last in circulation for about thirty years, while a bill needs to be replaced after just twenty two months. The GAO estimates that it costs $522 million a year to keep printing dollar bills rather than mandating a switch to coins.
That said, I hate dollar coins. I have enough change, I don't need more. Bills are easier to manage from a consumer standpoint.

Guess you haven't been to Ecuador. Here, where the US dollar is the official currency, you get golden dollar coins as change at least as often as the $1 bills, probably more.

Personally, I'm super-ticked that the US Mint quit making the things. They beat the crap out of $1 bills, and cost the government so much less to make and maintain. Why the heck didn't the gov't just ignore the whiners and pull the $1 bill?

I remember getting blitzed in Novia Scotia one night (too many Keith's and too many questions about the Ranger's sucktitude back when the NHL existed), and throwing back all of my coins as a tip to the bartender.
Waking up alone the next morning, realizing I tipped the bartender about $80 bucks. Canadian bastards:)

Back in college, a local supermarket cashier, when handed a Susan B., asked "What is this, Mexican?" Which was especially surprising since not only had they been around for years but the supermarket adjoined a commuter rail station that had ticket machines that gave them as change; you'd think she would get them all the time.

Another time at the same supermarket, my friend got carded. The cashier didn't recognize the out-of-state driver's license and got the manager, who examined it for a while before deciding: "MARY-land? No way." He'd never heard of the state of Maryland.

That said, we should take care to remember that not everyone in low-level retail jobs is that stupid. Don't make people's sucky jobs worse by assuming they're morons.

Even better than that - a friend of mine, who lives in Washington, was visiting California a few years back and went into a bar and was carded. At the time WA still used printed & laminated cards while CA had switched over to newer cards where the info was actually printed onto a plastic card. The bartender insisted that his ID was fake and proceded to cut it up.

Fortunately for my friend, a vacationing Washington State Trooper was in the bar and convinced the bartender to pay for the replacement card -and- cover my friend's party's tab for the evening.

I was standing outside Buckingham Palace waiting to see the Changing of the Guard, when a mounted cop rode over and herded us away from the gate to make way for a royal coach carrying a man in a Nehru hat. A lady next to me, obviously a fellow Yank, asked him "Who's the guy in the funny hat?" This dialogue ensued:

"That's the Ambassador from Mali, ma'am.""What country is that?""Well, it's...Mali, ma'am.""Well, where the hell is that?"

Whereupon the cop remembered urgent business elsewhere. I leaned over and said "It's on the Canadian border between Vermont and Manitoba. We depend on them for ball bearings."

The one pound coin in the U.K. is pretty great. Thick as two or three others, so there is writing on the edge. It's possible to even have one land this way in a toss - tho not too possible!

Easy to tell the things apart from others, and they naturally sort themselves out in your pocket. Makes me not miss the old "Isaac Newton" quid that was phased out in the 'eighties. It's also the best reason I can think of for Great Britain to stay out of the Euro.

Let all the/.ers unite and protest. Lets not buy from Best Buy. Let the bastards starve. Then all the employees there, including the cashier will have to pose nude for 'PlayBoy Best Buy edition'. I really dig that blonde chick at the store... finally I can get a glimpse;)

You'd be surprised now some cashiers react to money like that. At the grocery store, I saw someone ahead of me try and pay part of their bill with a 50 cent piece, and the cashier handed it back saying "We don't take Canadian money". I gave the lady two quarters for it after trying to convince the cashier it was really a US coin.

Well, on the one hand, it's been 20 years or so since I've even seen a 50-cent piece. On the other hand, did it even occur to that cashier to look at the coin?

A sidebar on coins and currency. When I was a kid, you saw a lot of denominations you no longer see, even though they're still officially in circulation. I believe this is mainly due to the domination of retail by big chains, which don't like to deal with more denominations than will fit easily in a standard cash register. (If you run one cash register, dealing with fifty-cent pieces is a small nuisance. If you run millions of them, dealing with fifty-cent pieces subtracts big bucks from your bottom line.) So they put the "odd" denominations in the bank, and never give them out as change. That's why dollar coins will never catch on, unless and until Congress makes room for them by withdrawing dollar bills.

This comment got me thinking. It seems that US currency has gone through many different changes over the years, and yet it's all still legal tender, resulting in a confusing mish-mash of coins and bills and whatnot. Is there any reason why all this currency is kept as legal tender? Here in the UK, when a new coin is introduced the old one is gradually phased out, with lots of public notices about the change. Then after a while the old coin ceases to be legal tender, although it can still be exchanged at banks. This seems to me to be a far more sensible solution, as it avoids the confusion that can occur when there are many different coins of the same denomination.

Actually we do...they just happen to be as uncommon up here as they are in the States

They seem to be slightly less rare than your $1.00 and $2.00 bills, but i've seen them.

I know I get hassled when I use $1.00/$2.00 Canadian bills in Canada.

Clerk "Where did you get these"Me "Expo 87"Clerk "But they say 86 on them"Me "I imagine they were printed before Expo 87"Clerk "Why do you have so many"Me "Well, we can't spend your currency in america, I went with my class and I collected the left over currency from all my classmates, today I bring it back".[a short time passes as they consult their book to see if it even looks like legal tender]Clerk "Where do you expect me to put this?"Me "Under the drawer where you keep your larger bills".

What scares me (and surprises me a little, though less than it probably should) is that this guy made it all the way to the county lock-up on the suspicions of one cashier

They interviewed this fellow on local radio last week. He said something to the effect of this:

The police sympathized with him and pretty much knew he was innocent, but they still could not make that judgement call themselves and had to wait for the Secret Service to arrive and verify that they were in fact not counterfiet.

Here's something I'm wondering about - what does the Secret Service have to do with counterfeit bills, anyway?

The initial charter of the USSS was to protect the nation's currency and put counterfeiters out of business, so to speak.

The whole "protecting the president" assignment came decades later, and while it's the task they're currently best known for, a large part of their work still goes towards the original goal. The Secret Service has field offices in all major US cities and many locales overseas, and when you consider that the president can only be in one place at a time (and is not constantly being threatened in all the other places where USSS has a presence), it becomes evident that most of the manpower is spent doing other things.

Among those other things, they assist with certain fraud investigations, especially mail fraud. When I worked in a retail postal facility, we'd get calls from USSS almost as often as USPIS. More recently, they've been called upon by various agencies to help investigate computer-related crimes, financial ones in particular. For example, they have an office specifically dedicated to investigating "419" scams (those emails you get from Prince Mambuto's widow in Nigeria who wants to transfer ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS to your bank account) - next time you get one, forward it to 419.fcd(at)usss.treas.gov with a quick note that you didn't lose any money.

I was locked up over something like this. The cashier thought I stole my mothers credit card. Which was a legitimate thought since it was reported stolen by my mother. So she decided to keep the credit card AND my drivers license. So I told her to just call the police and settle this now since I couldn't rightfully drive away anyway.

To make a long story short the officers told me (as I was riding to the station) that in any case always make sure YOU are the one who called the police. They are almost always on the side of the person that placed the call. And yes I got to wear the sporty hand cuffs.

Even scarier is the closing quote from the police spokesman: "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."

Excuse me, but how exactly does one equate suspected small-scale counterfeiting with hijacking airliners, flying them into buildings and killing thousands of people?

If this signifies anything, it's how, in the post-9/11 world, American society has gotten so moronic, brow-beaten and petrified that cops seriously expect us to buy such a flimsy excuse for their Gestapo tactics.

By the way, I went to grade school in Cockeysville, MD. My parents live only a few miles away. I'll make sure they avoid that particular store.

4: Customer is handcuffed and brought to police station for further questioning/investigation.

5: U.S. Secret Service agents (yes, the're the final authority on U.S. currency) arrive and release customer after bills are inspected and found to be completely legit.

In this particular case, the local police probably knew about $2 as legitimate U.S. currency, but were suspicious when the ink on the bills smeared a bit. After the Secret Service inspected the bills, they informed the local police (paraphrasing), "They do that, sometimes."

Under the circumstances, the whole situation could have been avoided by a little education on the part of the Best Buy cashier. I still think this needs to be done, and rather painfully. However, the local police seemed to follow proper protocol. Ink on U.S. currency doesn't usually smear or smudge because it's usually handled often enough for the excess to wear off quickly. The $2 is not generally handled as much and this seems to be a perfect example of why it isn't.

But, as you point out, they are required to take 'legal tender' in payments of debts, and coins are legal tender. Unless they specifically restrict forms of payment before you incur your debt.

This is absolutely correct! Unfortunately, many people don't understand the idea of "debt" as it applies to one-off transactions. They see the word "debt" and think about a mortgage or a credit card, so they wrongfully assume that this law doesn't apply to everyday purchases.

Let me add a couple of examples to further the point that you made.

Scenario 1: You go to the corner store, grab a 6-pack of Heineken, and walk to the checkout counter. The cashier tells you that your total is $7.48. You put four $2 bills on the counter. The cashier says, "We don't take those." The cashier is not violating the law; you have no debt to the store, the beer is still technically theirs. The store is not required to accept any particular form of payment from you.

Scenario 2: You go to the bar, grab a stool, and order a Heineken. The bartender brings it to you, and you drink it. You go to leave, and the bartender tells you that your total is $2.25. You put two $2 bills on the bar (and being a good patron, you tell the bartender to keep the change, of course!). The bartender says, "We don't take those." The bartender is violating the law. When you drank the beer, you incurred a debt to the bar; the bar is now obligated to accept any legal tender as payment.

Truthfully, I would find it strange as well. I have not seen a $2 billin a long long time. Same thing with all those $1 coins. However,people tend to accept strange coin amounts a lot easier then papermoney amounts.

It happens more then you might think. For a funny story about tryingto use a $2 bill at Taco Bell, check this out:

http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/closet/silly/2- at -Taco-Bell.html

However, I see it on the web attributed to at least 3 differentauthors, so I doubt it really happened.

It was first published on the net by Captain Sarcastic who ran alt.captain.sarcastic. It was borrowed by others and attributed to anonymous and other sources. I knew Captain Sarcastic at the time (actually, had known him for years) and he was quite upset about it all.

I can't prove it happened, but Kurt Koller (AKA Captain Sarcastic) originally wrote it.

Truthfully, I would find it strange as well. I have not seen a $2 bill in a long long time. Same thing with all those $1 coins. However, people tend to accept strange coin amounts a lot easier then paper money amounts.

You tend to see the currency people saved up over the years at times such as these when the gas price doubles. At the local gas station someone filled up their truck with 60 Eisenhower Silver Dollars [maxen.net]. Cash registers don't have a coin slot for dollar coins even though we've had dollar coins for decades. They should have them, but they don't. They are less desirable for stores than Suzie Bs or Sacagaweas. Needless to say they did the polite thing, set them aside, and asked people if they wanted their change in bills or Silver Dollars.

I kept them around long enough to see if any friends wanted them as I already had 20 of them. Not very rare or valuable, but still a cool thing to have, but eventually gave up and spent them. They got some odd looks, but I never had a problem with anyone taking it.

What I don't understand is in the past stores had books which listed pictures of legal tender. I know I got odd looks spending one and two Canadian dollar bills in Vancouver, but after looking in their book they decided it was legal tender if a tad dated. These days I imagine one could publish a nice PDF file and have it accessible on the register it self.

I find this whole story hard to swallow, I worked at a grocery store all through high-school and I knew this guy who would pay in $2 bills all the time, I can't say it really bothered me other then there isn't a place in the till to put them.

I find it hard to believe that someone has NEVER seen a $2 bill. It's not like they are hard to come across. Surely there must have been another reason for him being arrested...

For Baltimore County police, said spokesman Bill Toohey, "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."

Yeah, potentially counterfeit (as judged by a Best Buy employee!) $2 bills are top on my priority list after 9/11. It's so I can't even sleep at night. Thank god we've got people like "spokesman" Bill Toohey protecting us. I don't know what's scarier: That he'd say something like that, or that there's probably a couple hundred million Americans who would nod their heads in "understanding".

This story has everything: Evil Best Buy. Stupid and ignorant employees with a bizarre sense of power and no sense of customer service. Questionable law enforcement policies. Idiot using 9/11 as the ultimate cop-out.

The only problem with the story is that this time the Feds came in and the situation got better.

Mr. Mike Bolesta, please do not rest until everyone responsible for this debacle is severely reprimanded, fined, or has their employment terminated. They are your oppressors. Rise up against them.

Ha, the other day I was taking photographs of things in my neighbourhood on my lunch break. I was just snapping shots of random things and then decided to head back to work. On the way back, two officers approached me and asked for my ID and asked why was taking pictures of the police station. Turns out one of my shots happened to have the police station in the background. Anyway, I asked what the problem was and he said that they had to be extra vigilant in case of a *terrorist attack*. He then proceeded to write down notes on my facial features. He started questioning me about the other pictures I took, too. I stayed calm, but I was pissed off I was being treated like a criminal for doing nothing wrong.

You know the saddest thing of all? This is all took place in CANADA! I couldn't believe a police officer would be afraid of a terrorist attack on his police station in Canada.

That might be because the last time the government assured us that a new law wouldn't make someone compromise their religious principles that *promise* lasted only a couple of years.

If you want the details, it was when the government, (or was it just our unelected supreme court decided to add "Sexual Orientation" to the list of things you were not allowed to descriminate on the basis of that are listed in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. (Well actually it was our unelected Supreme Court that decided to do this even though the people who'd written the Charter only a few years before had considered putting "Sexual Orientation" in the list and decided against it, but let's not get sidetracked).

This was all fine and good, but some people had concerns that their religious convictions against homosexual lifestyles would be made illegal. (For instance a religious school might get shut down for refusing to hire a man in a sexual relationship with another man). The architects of our new world order assured us this was merely our stupid redneck paranoia getting the best of us and that we shouldn't worry, because our betters would make sure that religious freedom was protected.

Some time later, a religious man [findarticles.com] in Toronto who owned a printing company was approached by an activist group [www.clga.ca] wanting him to print their letter head, business cards etc. The man refused because he felt it violated his religious conscience to use his resources to aid an organization that promoted ideas contrary to his beliefs. Rather than go to another printer muttering something about ignorant dumbasses, (as some people might do if their business was refused), the group decided to make a human rights complaint. (Human rights commissions are not courts of law incidentally, but their decisions have the force of law). The man was fined $5000 and was told that he was not allowed to refuse orders like that.

A couple of other factors are interesting. This was in Toronto where there are many printers available, many of whom would have loved the business. It's not as if this action took away anyone's ability to actually get materials printed. Also, no one ever contested that the man did in fact serve gay customers and there was no suggestion that the man wouldn't serve people who were gay, merely that he wouldn't print materials promoting a homosexual lifestyle.

Now I know nothing about the situation other than what I've read, but I do have a personal connection to the next case. (Albeit a distant one).

A Christian man by the name of Chris Kempling [bcptl.org] teaches school in British Columbia. He wrote a letter to a local newspaper. (In fact he wrote one freelance column and six letters to the editor between 1997 and 2000). Dr. Kempler's views are so toxic that he addressed the UN on March 4th 2005 [catholiceducation.org] on the subject of Human Rights. The subject of of Dr. Kempler's letters were factual STD & promiscuity rates, that many religions consider homosexuality to be immoral, that it may be caused by negative psycho-social influences, and that it was nothing to be applauded. He did not express these views in the classroom, or in the staff room, but only in the editorial pages of the local newspaper. In 2002 he was suspended by the BC College of teachers. The suspension was upheld by the Supreme Court of British Columbia in last year.

My tenuous connection to this case is that a co-worker and friend of mine knows him personally and his father helped Dr. Kempler in his defence. (Unsuccesfully). The accounts I have heard is that Dr. Kempler is reasonable and does not descend to nasty behaviour. (Most certainly not a "redneck").

Maybe he installed the radio to listen to terrorist broadcasts.
Maybe he was laundering money for the terrorists.
Maybe he was just distracting the area law enforcement so that a greater scheme could be employed without hinderence.
You just never know, and everyone is a suspect.
Remember, If you spend your two dollar bills, Al-Queda wins.

::Removes tongue from cheek::
Laughable, if it wasn't the mindset of the person who spoke it.

Would be a good excuse."sorry im late for the examn, but in this post 9/11 world, nobody can be sure to arrive in time""sorry i could not finish the project, in this post 9/11 world i needed to check for terrorists which cost too much time..."hmseems only to work for state authorities.

Well, it's not necessarily stupid per se, but there will hopefully be a few lawsuits over this bullshit. False arrest, defamation, etc. And I think Best Buy should be charged criminally with refusing to accept legal US currency, if that's a law anywhere on the books.

You can't legally refuse to accept any real denomination of money in payment of a debt unless you establish it as a policy and post a notice to that effect in advance.

That's why you see all those signs about not accepting bills over $50, etc... Without the sign, they can't use the denomination as an excuse not to take the money.

At least, that's what the cops concluded when a friend of mine called them from a towing yard after they refused to take $181 in loose pennies as payment to get his car out. After calling it in, the cop basically told the towing guy that since he didn't have a sign, if he didn't take the pennies my friend would own the place after sueing.

Of course, the whole time he whined about being stuck in the office counting pennies instead of being able to make more money by towing more cars.

Since he had towed my friend's car for double-parking in a private parking spot that he had permission to park in, while leaving two cars right next door parked in a red zone (which is actually why he had been called out), we felt really bad for the tow truck guy....

The reason corporate payouts are so large is because corporations do not feel the weight of small disbursements. I swear corporations have more rights than actual citizens these days.

A parking ticket can run $200. That's an entire week's take home pay for some people. You can bet they won't be parking there again. What's an entire week's take home profit for Best Buy? Don't you think that this guy was effectively slandered by the best buy representative, and that slander is worse than a parking tickit?

When I first arrived in the US I bought some stamps from a vending machine at the post office. It gave me change in the form of dollar coins. I couldn't spend them. People repeatedly told me that they'd never seen them before and couldn't accept them. When I found someone who would accept them they said "you shouldn't spend those, they're worth something". They came out of a vending machine. They're worth exactly what it says on them. I couldn't believe that I, a mere foreigner, seemed to know more about the local currency than the locals.

Well not exactly. I believe it is the coinage act of 1967 (76?) that says vendors do _not_ have to take any form of legal tender if they disclose what they _will_ accept up front. If you attempt to pay with legal tender and are declined without them telling you they don't accept that form of payment up front they you are no longer responsible for providing payment. Interpretations of the law vary though.

Yeah, you are only required to accept legal tender to pay off a preexisting debt. But this was a preexisting debt.

He had bought the radio the day before, and the employee then told him that the installation fee was waived because of a mixup, so he went home thinking the transaction was complete. The next day Best Buy called him and told him that if he didn't come in and pay the installation fee they would call the police. So he came in and tried to pay off the pre-existing debt with legal tender. The cashier then called the police because she thought it was fake.

So employees of this store broke the law at least once during the transaction. The manager should definitely be sued, and the staff sacked.

Best Buy would have no reason whatsoever to call the police in a case like that. If they give you something free, you leave the store, and they later want you to pay, too bad for them. Merchants threatening to call the police in order to collect a debt is a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Act, which may apply here. There's something else this guy could sue for. When will people realize, Best Buy will keep doing shit like this because people let them. They will continue to stuff money in Best Buy cash registers no matter how poorly they are treated. Yes, it is possible to avoid them, I haven't shopped there in 3 years and I've bought plenty of electronics in that time.

QuestionI thought that United States currency was legal tender for all debts. Some businesses or governmental agencies say that they will only accept checks, money orders or credit cards as payment, and others will only accept currency notes in denominations of $20 or smaller. Isn't this illegal?

Answer The pertinent portion of law that applies to your question is the Coinage Act of 1965, specifically Section 102. This is now found in section 392 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The law says that: "All coins and currencies of the United States, regardless of when coined or issued, shall be legal-tender for all debts, public and private, public charges, taxes, duties and dues."

This statute means that all United States money as identified above are a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor. There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise. For example, a bus line may prohibit payment of fares in pennies or dollar bills. In addition, movie theaters, convenience stores and gas stations may refuse to accept large denomination currency (usually notes above $20) as a matter of policy.

It seems like the police and other institutions in America love to use their 'free' 24 hour arrest period as a kind of on the spot punishment for anyone they don't like. they can be either held on something specific like suspicion of fraud or just for that old catch-all 'disorderly conduct'. I would imagine stores like best buy also like to use this for annoying customers - just call up and claim something arrestable is going on and who are the cops going to believe, some guy, or a reputable store? Was it even fucking necessary to handcuff this guy? i thought cuffs were only for uncooperative people and maybe transporting? There can't be much in the way of compensation if you get locked up for absolutely nothing, and in some cases people get more than 24 hours without lawyers! So just remember, if you come accross a bad cop, they can have you for a day for so much as walking funny or, and lets face it this is the real reason, paying a bill with to many small notes - don't give me that "we didn't know $2 bills wer legal and the ink looked dodgy", they were just pissed off because he was playing with them - the $2 and running ink was just a ticket for them to call the cops.

He was asked to come back to the store and pay the installation charge on the stereo he originally wanted, which was recommended in the first place, when this unit would not fit and a more expensive model was installed instead (he paid the difference). The store reneged on a verbal agreement that they would not charge him for installation because of the mixup.

but during a radio program I was listening to, it was reported that the $2 bills were sequentially numbered and that the anti-counterfeit ink smeared on one of the bills. If this is true, then it may not be so far fetched that the police would have been contacted. Does this justify an immediate arrest in handcuffs? No, but if true, it does lend some light to why Best Buy would have acted the way they did, and it would give them one hell of a defense against a defimation suit.

Like the guy in TFA, I ask for $2 bills all the time from the bank when I cash my paycheck. The bank is more than happy to give them to me, citing that they are a waste of space for other more common bills.

The first round of fun comes when the teller gives me the money- usually tellers count money very fast, but when they get to the $2 bills, they slow down significanty (it's funny to me, at least). Next comes when you try to spend them at Wal-Mart. Here are my favorite examples:

1) The cashier asks me to pay with "regular" money, as she somehow didn't realize $2 bills are legal tender.

2) Another cashier asks me if they are fake. When I tell her no, they are in fact real, she questions me again, and turns on her blinky-light to signal the manager to come over. The manager tells her they can accept them, but asks me not to use them next time. The manager leaves, and the cashier is confused as to where they put the bills, as there is no slot for them. She puts them with the $20s, instead of under the drawer like she should (probably because they both had "2"s on them).

3) Yet another cashier questions their validity about a week later. He says there are no slots for 2s in the drawer, so he can't take them. I tell him there are no slots for 50s and 100s either, which for some reason upsets him. There goes the blinky light, and over comes the manager. She recognizes me from last week, and asks why I continue to "make trouble." I tell her that $2 bills are legal tender, blah blah blah, yet she insists that I only do it to cause problems (well, she kinda has a point there... but I like $2 bills because they are prime, like $5 dollar bills). Basically, she told me I was not welcome to shop there if I continued to try to use $2 bills there. I called the Wal-Mart customer service number, left a complaint, and suprisingly, was rewarded with a $20 gift card. I later received a letter stating that the manager has been contacted, and there is no reason whatsoever that I shouldn't be allowed to spend $2 bills there. So now, every time I go, I make sure I use at least one of them.;)

I also do something like this. a local gas station has signs everywher that they do not accept $50.00 and $100 dollar bills.

Guess what. when I goto fill the RV I use them exclusively. The change I get back is usually 5-6 bucks. so it is not inconviencing them. I forced them to call the cops 3 times in 2 years as in Michigan refusing legal tender payment marks a debt paid in full, so that gas I paid is free if they refuse my money.

every time the cop shows up, after a few minutes of them trying to convince me to pay with something else, they take my large bills, I say thank you and "see you all next week/month!"...

Guess what, the signs stating they do not accept 50's and 100's is gone... I guess I ned to find another gas station to torment.

I suggest that concerned Slashdotter's everywhere protest this by stocking up on $2 bills. On a chosen day (how about a new-release Tuesday?), each individual should attempt to purchase an agreed upon CD (perhaps Britney Spears) and pay for it with the $2 bills.

If the purchase actually succeeds, the purchaser should immediately go to the return desk and return the CD unopened for cash. Consider this a bonus protest against the RIAA.

What's the least number of coins needed to make 45 cents? My answer was 2, a quarter and a 20-cent piece. She thought I was just being my normal sarcastic self, until I brought the coin in the next day.

That was pretty fun. We didn't make 'em for long (1875-1878), but we made 'em.

The article says that he used to give kids $2 bills as lunch money. It's an uncommon item, and the kids thought it was neat. A source of some amusement.

Now his son doesn't want to take them, because of the trouble it caused. What's the lesson? Straying from the norm gets you in trouble. A little uniqueness used to be a source of amusement, now it's a source of fear. I feel sad about this.

Maybe it's just me but I don't get it. Where's the fun in paying with $2 bills? It seems the only reason to do that is you can force others into a conflict where you will be proven right in the end. I understand confronting people and then being proven right. But egging others into a conflict? That just seems wheeny.

Not only do I not get the humour but I get the outrage even less. Why do people get mad when they spend two dollar bills and the seller doesn't recognize it as legal tender. By very nature of the fact that the spender is going out of his way to get two dollar bills he has to recognize that they are rarely used and many don't know they exist. Don't you give up your right to be outraged by people questioning your actions when you've chosen actions just so that they would raise questions?

If you enjoy creating conflict with these kinds of stunts then fine. I mean I still don't get it but your fun doesn't seem to harm anyone. But if you're going to get angry when people respond to the bait that you are laying out for them then why do it? And I certainly don't think there's any reason to have empathy for you if you do get exactly the responce you were hoping for.

"I'm sitting there in a chair. The store's full of people watching this. All of a sudden, [a Baltimore County cop is] standing me up and handcuffing me behind my back, telling me, 'We have to do this until we get it straightened out.' Bolesta was then taken to the county police lockup in Cockeysville, where he sat handcuffed to a pole and in leg irons [for three hours] while the Secret Service was called in."

To paraphrase a poster on Fark.com (can't give you an exact quote, they spilled beer on their database:) "I feel sorry for the Secret Service agent. You train for years to bust big counterfeiters, and then you get called for this."

It's a well known fact that Best Buy hires only the stupidest people it can find, but a cop ought to at least know what currencies are legal.

FTA, he ended up in a county jail, so at some point the county sheriffs must have played a role in this, so they are probably the ones who arrested him.

Best Buy security guards (aka "rent-a-cops") do not have the authority to make an actual arrest, but in some states can have limited authority to temporarily detain someone while waiting for the real police to arrive. (btw, IAAL)

Uh...no. The $2 bill, like any other bill, is "legal tender for all debts, public and private." The government says YOU MUST ACCEPT IT. Unlike the various currencies of old, it's not an IOU note for gold or some such inherently valuable thing. It's called "fiat" money--worth $2 because the government says so.
Good thing you're an AC, so we can't make fun of you for sleeping through high-school economics.

The cashier noticed smearing of the ink - which apparently was actually there. The $2 bills may have been the first thing that got her notice but the smeared ink on them is what she claims made her suspicious enough to call her manager.

When the officer came, he noticed that the bills all had sequential serial numbers - apparently a common sign in counterfeit currency.

At that point, given the smeared ink and the sequential serial numbers, the officer felt he had grounds to detain the man until the secret service could be called.

Now it turns out that, according to the secret service officer, the ink on legitimate bills does smear from time to time. I'd not heard of that, I'm guessing most people hadn't.

The fact that he gets them as a custom withdrawl from his bank - which probably has absolutely no other use for $2 bills - explains the sequential serial numbers. They likely get them relatively directly from the treasury in large batches and only issue from those large batches to him.

None of this proves he was a criminal - it was all completely explainable.

But it wasn't a simple case of not recognising $2 bills. The smeared ink and sequential serial numbers were enough for the officer to detain him until an explanation could be verified.

It may suck but the officer had reasonable grounds to detain him until he could confirm the story. I would imagine, in the majority of cases where suspect money comes up, the person caught tries feeding a story. At the end of the day, the question is whether you believe it's right to occasionally wrongfully detain one person or regularly let go many. Rightly or wrongly, the concept of reasonable grounds enshrines the former.

When the officer came, he noticed that the bills all had sequential serial numbers - apparently a common sign in counterfeit currency.

Identical numbers is believable, for a simple copying setup, but sequential? Whatever mechanism a counterfeiter has to add serial numbers to the unnumbered bills coming off the copier/printer, making it a non-repeating psuedo-random sequence, or simply adding 4357 instead of 1 for each cycle, is trivial.

When the officer came, he noticed that the bills all had sequential serial numbers - apparently a common sign in counterfeit currency.

Do you have any basis for the claim that sequential numbers are common on counterfeit bills?

I worked for a couple of years as a bank teller. I've never seen counterfeit bills with sequential serial numbers. The most common gaffe I've seen counterfeiters make with respect to serial numbers is actually to duplicate them.

For instance, the local courthouse, which was across the street from my branch, takes any cash in excess of $100 from those arrested and brought in to be held. One person had about $600 in counterfeit fifties on them when arrested -- the paper felt wrong and the watermark was missing. Upon further examination, I noticed that there were only two unique serial numbers across the bills. We notified the local Secret Service office, and they sent over a courier to take the bills.

Sequential numbers wouldn't bother me, unless the bills were worn to a large extent. It's common for banks to receive shipments of new bills, especially twos and twenties, and it stands to reason that a teller with new bills (which are shipped in sequence) would give the customer the bills as they were pulled from the drawer.

The smeared ink and sequential serial numbers were enough for the officer to detain him until an explanation could be verified.

Bullshit. Again, what evidence do you have that sequential numbers are suspicious? How "smudged" was the ink? Did the cashier compare the appearance of the bills to other bills in his drawer? Did he look for the watermark present in new bills? How about the officer? This customer did nothing wrong, and the police had no justification other than some garbage about heightened homeland security.

The question is not, as you claim, whether it's reasonable to hold someone given reasonable suspicion. The question is how much doubt must be present -- this man attempted to use legal tender to satisfy a debt, and given my cash-handling experience I don't see any reason to have doubted him.

The cops didn't have an issue with the two dollar bill, they had an issue with the fact that a disgruntled customer tried to pay a debt with 57 sequentialy numbered two dollars bills and one of the had an ink smudge. Take those bold pieces and put them together and you start to see why the cops reacted the way they did. Should they have brought up 9/11? No. Should they have taken him back to the station to investigate? Yes. Should they have put him in hand cuffs? Depends, how much of an ass he was being. We know he went in with the intent of being an ass (that was why he was paying with two dollar bills). How loud and obnoxious was he being? That isn't stated in the article.